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The Connection Newsletter 76 - The Passion vs. Gig Economy
The Connection Newsletter #76 - The Passion vs. Gig Economy
Hello!
This is edition #76 of
The Connection
, the weekly email I send family, friends, and future friends (hello!) Glad you're here.
The future of work is here. And it’s neither the golden age, nor the Hunger Games of our generation.
Li Jin of a16z thoroughly broke down
here. Some highlight reel stats:
The top-earning writer on newsletter platform Substack earns $500,000+ a year from reader subscriptions
The top creator on video course platform Podiaa earns $100,000+ a month
One of the top creators on artist platform Patreon earns $95,000+ a month (source)
In the future of work, platform users can build audiences at scale and monetize their passions. This is dubbed
the Passion Economy
: more and more people making a living off their art and individuality, whether it’s by playing video games, making videos, or writing thought pieces.
The Passion Economy is indicative of the continued convergence of technology, entertainment, and media.
It’s also very different from what’s been dubbed
the Gig Economy
, “turnkeys ways for people to make money in narrow services like food delivery, parking, or transportation.”
From Jin’s piece:
Which is right for you: Passion or Gig Economy?
Perhaps neither.
Having a full-time job can be a wonderful experience. Security, benefits, and none of the headaches to keep the lights on.
Contrary to motivational Instagram accounts and MLM Facebook groups selling leggings and sanitary napkins, I do not believe everyone is cut out to “be your own boss.” The pressure is enormous and can lead to a lot of unhappiness.
If you’re trying to earn a full-time income in the Gig economy, the numbers can be bleak:
The Economic Policy Institute ballparks the hourly rate of the average Uber driver in the US at $9.21 after expenses, with no benefits.
The median earnings per hour during peak times is $19 per hour, before expenses (source)
The average TaskRabbit earns $110 per month (source)
I didn’t find hard numbers on the average hourly rate for those making their income via the Passion Economy. But it’s worth pointing out that while start up costs are low, most creators agree it can take years to earn a full-time income, and there are no guarantees.
Earning Money On the Side
However, if you’re supplementing vs trying to replace your full-time income, it’s a different story.
Maybe you’re not happy with your 9-5 salary and you don’t see a viable path to compensation increases. The Gig and Passion Economy provide more avenues than ever to close the gap.
Or if you’re pursuing a creative career (acting, writing, whatever), it’s nice to have options to scrape together your rent money. In August 2010, I wrote about my debate to
. If today’s gig or passion opportunities were available to me back then, I might have made a different decision.
Here’s a glance at some of the new digital platforms:
This doesn’t include the “new-old fashioned way” of making money as an influencer on the vanguard social media platforms (Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, or Snap) OR on the new platforms:
Tic Tok - Sharing short music videos
Triller - Sharable short videos
Cameo - Personalized video shout-outs
Makin’ It Rain (With Years of Consistent Hard Work)
In theSkimm newsletter, they share recent accomplishments of its members. Here’s an accomplishment recently posted:
“Nadia has pursued her photography business on the side since 2010. After nine years, she’s ready to focus on it full-time.”
The Gig and Passion Economies are opening doors to more Nadias -- people who diligently pursue what they love on the side until it becomes financially viable to turn that side-thang into a full-time-thang.
If you’ve been working on your own side-thang, keep going.
It may not pay the bills at the start.
It may not pay the bills for the next 10 years.
But there are more ways to make it possible.
---
This week, I’ve rounded up some of my favorite articles on various entrepreneurs and creators who are “making it” in the Gig or Passion Economy. Some are new, others I’ve shared in past
Connections. I found them all fascinating.
Hope you do, too.
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“He” is Tyler Blevins, aka Ninja, and he could be the poster child for the movement towards the Passion Economy.
(He also suggests that the number is closer to seven-figures.)
The most fascinating thing about Ninja is his mindset.
For all intents and purposes, he already won -- he gets to play video games and make an incredible living. But that’s not how he sees it.
"When I'm not streaming, I have time to reflect on all the growth, and I don't like that. I'd rather just be home playing," he says. "I'm like, 'I haven't played a celebrity in a while. I haven't done something big in a while. Is it because I'm slowing down?'
"So many people get content. So many people stop when they're at the top. They'll let someone take their place because they're relaxing. That's not going to happen."
Is Patreon funding the Passion Economy or merely subsidizing the revenue-sharing model of behemoth distribution platforms like YouTube?
This profile is a terrific existential examination of the platform that helps creatives monetize. My favorite vignette: how Jacke Conte reverse-engineered Patreon’s origin story (the creation of
, which they knew they’d never be able to recover the costs to make) to launch the platform and drum up a rally cry for creatives.
A great example of niche Passion Economy that simply would not exist without a platform like Patreon. Models are able to engage with their fans, which in turn enables the possibility of a real, long-term relationship versus a short, transactional one.
“Michelle is just one of dozens of women who use Patreon to sell nude photos, videos, and other prizes to willing — and paying — fans. As a full-time Patreon creator, she’s on the more successful end of erotic content makers. Some of her contemporaries see Patreon as a side-hustle on the way to more lucrative gigs; others want to go full time, but haven’t quite figured out how. There’s no set career path here, but for these women, those paths all converge on Patreon.”
I had never heard of Emma Chamberlain before this profile, which just reaffirms how popular you can become (8.51m YouTube subscribers at the time of this writing) and still be “niche”.
Or maybe I’m just old.
YouTubers big and small have used the platform to make a living doing what they love. Some like the Philippou twins (their channel, RackaRacka has 5.4m subs) have built an estimated net worth of $1.4m off the back of YouTube. Smaller YouTubers like Christine Barger (8k subs) leveraged the platform to appear on national television (
Penn & Teller’s Fool Us).
Now it appears the party is over, and some creators are (literally) crying about it.
Others have invested time in cracking the YouTube algorithm to ascertain their Preference Score, aka the
.” According to YouTube, the P-Score “looks at the popularity and viewer passion of specific content — things like the amount of repeat views and how often videos are shared” to determine if that video shows up in your feed.
As YouTube goes mainstream, they open the door to newer, more niche entrants, like Patreon and others like:
There’s a dark side to Influencer fame, and Caroline Calloway has lived it.
“To display the details of an appealing life is to gather fans and jealous toads at about a 5-to-1 ratio. Get big enough, and then make a mistake, and the toads will rise up. - Female internet rage is not nearly as frightening as male internet rage, which can include threats of extreme violence and sexual harm. But what it lacks in physical threats, it can make up for in intensity.”
Which explains why sometimes the biggest influencers just need to
.
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